NE never can tell." This is a world of change, and anything beyond the limits of the most fertile imagination may happen to anyone, anywhere, at any moment.
Were I a bellicose Bellamy, I might incline towards "Looking backwards" from the standpoint of a hundred years hence, and thus, posing as a special of 1991, might sigh for the shortcomings of the past, and picture myself crossing, on an aerial machine, the erst dark Continent (now lit by electric light) at a pace which would have even shattered the nerves of the driver of an old Brighton express—"a ponderous steam conveyance which, a hundred years ago, succeeded the stage coach." Again, I might suppose myself sending sketches or despatches from remote battlefields by means of "the electric communicator," a coil carried in one's portmanteau, and which, by a simple mechanical arrangement—one end being secured at the office of your newspaper in Fleet-street or the Strand—unwinds as you travel, so that, wherever the fates have destined you to go, you may be in immediate communication with the editor of the journal you represent; nay, more, the electric current passing through your pen or pencil, simultaneously producing copy or sketches with a corresponding pen or pencil at the other end. I say, were I a sort of bellicose Bellamy, I might compare the possible perfection of the future with the shortcomings of to-day; but then, you see, I'm not, and, though quite content to admit that "one never can tell," I'm still more disposed in these "Anecdotes of the War-path," by sticking to the practical present, to convey some idea of the doings of correspondents at the front.
To begin with, an iron constitution is the best basis on which to build up the war special, whose gifts with pen or pencil will depend entirely on the diplomacy he possesses by means of which to get to the front himself, and, at the same time, keep sufficiently in touch with the rear, to be in perpetual communication with his own headquarters at home.
I remember how one, otherwise most brilliant Special, whose talent won for him a reputation which he continues to enjoy, came utterly to grief through want of that tact which enabled others, during the siege of Plevna, to get their articles and sketches through. Between the slowly, very slowly contracting girdle of Muscovite steel which encircled that place and the Danube, there was a perfectly free communication. The historic bridge of boats was crossed without difficulty, and, Roumania being thus reached, one was in direct, uninterrupted correspondence with the street beloved of Doctor Johnson. The Special in question, however, being assured by suave, courteous, and in many cases English-speaking officers, that the Russian Bear was the soul of
